im not even an artist and these prices are hurting my feelings
This is what I have to dig through every time I look for new jobs to apply for.
For non-artists, let’s give you a little perspective.
For me, an illustration takes a bare minimum of 6 hours. Mind you, that’s JUST the drawing part. Not the research, or the communications, or gathering information. Just drawing.
That’s if it’s a simple illustration.
My art deco or more detailed stuff can take 20+ hours each.
Even simple, cartoony things still take at least 3 hours.
Let’s go with the second one. 2 illustrations for $25. Figuring 6 hours each. 12 hours total, for JUST the drawings. That’s approximately $2.08/hour.
Asking these prices is an insult. But what’s even more hurtful is there are people out there that will take these jobs. Which only encourages rates like this to be acceptable. And there are people who will try to say these are just what you have to do to get started.
I believed that. So my first coloring gigs were just $10/page. The day someone offered me $25/page for just flatting work, I realized just how wrong I’d been. I’m still not making the rates I’d like, but now I refuse anything below $25/page. Because there is value in my time.
In any standardized industry, even ones that pay piece rate over hourly, these numbers are criminal.
Do your fellow artists a favor. Never accept jobs like these. There are others that pay legitimate rates. Or at least closer to legitimate.
Such baby bullshit. Don’t even get out of bed for these rates.
If you are an artist who wants to make money off their art, I highly suggest you buy The Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook. It goes in depth about copyright issues and even contains contract and model release templates. The 2013 book *I believe* states the average professional charges $72 an hour. This article calculated that to make a 40k annual salary you would need to charge about $60 per hour.
After graduating from Art Center in 2012, I think I asked for somewhere between $35-45 an hour and got laughed at by multiple big name clients, which was infuriating, sadly expected, and terrifying with over $100K worth of student loans staring me in the face. If they tell you it will be “great exposure” that’s a red flag. Ask yourself how their exposure can compare to your Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook pages combined?
And when you do get a decent paying gig, PROTECT YOURSELF. You have the right to negotiate and revise a contract. Do not start a job until you have a contract signed. If they don’t provide you with one, MAKE ONE. And make sure you have your bases covered. You can specify in a contract that maybe two revisions are included in your cost, and if they ask you to revise the piece more than twice, they will have to pay extra. In terms of payment schedule, I usually do the 50/50 Method (50% before, 50% after) or the 3/3/3 Method (1/3 before, 1/3 in the middle, 1/3 after all work has been received). Both of those are pretty standard in the industry, as they guarantee you will get compensated for your time, even if the job goes bad.
Remember you have a skill, and you have spent time honing that skill and you deserve to be adequately paid for that time and effort. You will have clients dismiss you because, honest to God they think, “Well, I could do that if I wanted. Hell, my five year old does it now.” No they can’t, because they didn’t, they don’t, they won’t and they probably never will. And good luck hiring a five year old. They can’t keep a fucking deadline.
And in a last ditch effort they’ll say, “But that drawing only took you an hour!” Son, that drawing took me 20. fucking. years.
10 Dollars for 1 minute of animation. Oh my god my heart. It took my team 6 months and a team of 12 to make a 4 minute short.
I second this book! I’ve had it for several years now, and it’s been a HUGE help in my work as a freelance artist. It gives great advice on what to charge for different areas of art!
Please remember. Your art is worth a respectable payment! Accepting ridiculously low prices actually hurts the arts/illustration/animation communities because it makes employers believe they can employ people without offering decent pay.
Check the internet if you need help figuring out what you should be charging for your commissions. Invest in the books that will inform you professionally, and put your foot down if you think someone is trying to cheat you out of your time and hard work. You have a right to refuse a job, and/or request decent payment. If your employer denies a you decent pay, well then they’re probably not a very good employer. Do not undersell your skills. it is bad for the art community and you are worth more then that.
For any freelancers out there
When I first started out in freelance, my pay was shafted for the first few projects I was involved with, by clients who thought my time and effort was worth less than what I pegged it.
They told me “you’re a greenhorn in this industry, what you’re asking for is way too high for someone who’s just starting out. I know people who would do that for less”
I was young, I was naive, and I thought “gosh, these people have been in the industry much longer than I have, so maybe I am overpricing myself.” So guess what? I believed them. I slashed my prices and ended up making peanuts-per-hour for all my time and effort put in to businesses (which, by the way, sought out MY work to begin with,) because I was scared this source of income would disappear, and that I’d make a bad impression on people as an artist. Boy, was I wrong, and to this day I don’t ever forget the mistakes I made.
Do NOT let other people undermine your time and skill. Ask for decent pay, and if they say no, then don’t be afraid to say “No thanks” and decline the job, because there are more opportunities out there, run by people who would actually know how businesses work (hey, protip for employers: you can’t make $$$ without spending $$$.) Pro Bono/reduced pricing work should only be done as volunteer positions that you choose for yourself. Giving yourself a poor rate casts a poor light on ALL artists out there, so we need to work together to build our community and flip the bird to shifty employers out there who thinks art is done simply by pressing a big red “MAKE PRETTY ARTS” button.
Also, a big FUCK YOU to employers/clients who think “exposure” is a legitimate replacement for paid work. EXPOSURE AIN’T GONNA PAY MY BILLS OR BUY ME FOOD AT THE GROCERY STORE, PAL.
((I once got hired to do 3 posters, 8
slides and promotional material for a play. The agreed price was
$1500, a low price for that amount of work.
At the end I got a cheque for $300 and
a “the play didn’t make as much as we thought it would.” The
shows had all sold out… The venue had been packed. He acted like
10% of what he claimed the earnings were made this all right.
I told him that $300 is what I spent
hiring an assistant to get his 25+ revisions done and to print on
time since he kept making revisions the day it needed to be at the
printers. He gave me an extra $300.
I got $300 for almost 300 hours of work
that could have been spent on projects that actually pay what was
promised. That $300 went to rent and I couldn’t afford a lawyer cause
I was out for the hours of work and had to recoup that loss out of my
savings just to live that month.
Kicker is, he was the head of relations
for the biggest theatre in my city. That’s right, his job revolved
around hiring artists for play work. It doesn’t matter what a
person’s reputation is, they will fuck you the second they think they
can get the chance. I now pay a retainer for a lawyer for any work
over $500 because even with a written agreement, even with a stated fair pay, people hate artists.))
